Wedding cakes and desserts

Check out Target; I think that's where the girls were picking up those figurines

thanks, Chloe Hayes51. 😘
if anyone else has any intel, feel free to speak up...

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This was my cake—and honestly, I thought it turned out pretty great.😍

Hey Brian Reed74, love the cake design... Mine is going to look pretty much the same. Tell me, did you guys have any trouble slicing it?

Cutting was actually fine—even though it was a bit on the firmer side—but presenting the cake was the real headache since it turned out pretty dry inside. The lady who made it was still getting her footing with this specific batter, and she was so worried about the whole thing collapsing that she skipped the filling entirely.

Fine, thanks... But what did the cake actually look like once you sliced it? Since it was basically a cake on top of another cake, I'm curious. How did that even look on the plate?!

As most of you all know by now, I’m getting married in about a year, but I have already found myself completely caught up in all the planning madness! I just had to share this particular vision I have in mind with you all. I am dreaming of a cake covered in fondant, finished off with these elegant ribbons—I’m leaning towards a deep burgundy or plum shade for those. As for the floral elements on top, whether they’ll be real blooms or delicate marzipan sculptures, well, I haven't quite decided yet; I suppose I’ll see how the inspiration flows!
My only real headache at the moment is tracking down a cake stand that matches this aesthetic.
Do you think a local glassblower or maybe someone at a shop like West Elm could custom-make something similar using plexiglass or a high-quality acrylic?


Oh, and please, don't hold back—what do you all think of the look??

She's adorable!

We actually went with marzipan figurines ourselves: Homer and Marge.
We’ve got a thing for self-deprecating humor, I guess. 😬

Morgan Stewart50 said:As most of you all know by now, I’m getting married in about a year, but I have already found myself completely caught up in all the planning madness! I just had to share this particular vision I have in mind with you all. I am dreaming of a cake covered in fondant, finished off with these elegant ribbons—I’m leaning towards a deep burgundy or plum shade for those. As for the floral elements on top, whether they’ll be real blooms or delicate marzipan sculptures, well, I haven't quite decided yet; I suppose I’ll see how the inspiration flows!
My only real headache at the moment is tracking down a cake stand that matches this aesthetic.
Do you think a local glassblower or maybe someone at a shop like West Elm could custom-make something similar using plexiglass or a high-quality acrylic?


Oh, and please, don't hold back—what do you all think of the look??

I’ve spotted stands like that on a few American sites—just try a quick Google search and you might be able to order one directly. I was hunting for cake toppers recently and stumbled across similar stuff.

Dana Gomez89 said:Fine, thanks... But what did the cake actually look like once you sliced it? Since it was basically a cake on top of another cake, I'm curious. How did that even look on the plate?!

Well, we just cut into the bottom layer and it looked fine—not sure I follow your point.
It’s probably some kind of Swiss buttercream—we imported it from Switzerland. Like I mentioned earlier, there wasn't any filling inside because the lady baking them was worried the structure might collapse; she’s never worked with this specific frosting before (she bakes at home, she isn't a pro), but she did a great job regardless. The only thing is, the cake was incredibly heavy. We went through 8kg of that frosting—I'm not sure if that's standard or if she just overdid it out of pure nerves. The "glaze" layer was pretty thick.

Does anyone here who knows more about this know if 5kg of mixture is enough to frost three cakes? I have some left over and want to give it to a friend for her wedding, but since my batch used up 8kg for my three cakes, I can't tell if that's normal or if she went overboard. (She also made all those little frosting flowers, which my friend doesn't need).
thanks

Brian Reed74 actually, our cake weighed in at about 18 pounds, and we had actual professional pastry chefs handling the whole thing. They told us straight up that it had to be that massive because once you get into that kind of density, you just can't go small if you want it to hold up. 👍

Zeljka mentioned that they went with a tiered cake too—just two levels—and honestly, slicing it and plating it was a total breeze. We started with the top tier first, and everything came out on the plates perfectly without a single crumb sliding off the side. That much frosting and sponge really acts like a structural anchor for the whole thing!

I’ve decided my cake is going to be covered in fondant, too—I just haven't settled on the exact type yet.

As for the dessert spread, I’m not losing any sleep over it. Everything is going to be delicious, authentic, homemade goodness. Growing up, whenever there was a wedding on our street or even just somewhere nearby, my mom would always whip up a batch or two of treats to drop off, just as a little gesture of goodwill toward the neighbors. You know how it is in those tight-knit American suburbs; it’s just what the women in the neighborhood do to stay connected. Well, it turns out all those same women have reached out to my mom to let her know she doesn't need to worry about a thing—they've got the desserts completely covered.

Desserts might seem like a minor detail, but honestly, they are absolutely essential. I mean, can you even imagine a wedding without a dessert spread? It just wouldn't feel right! I’ve been doing some digging lately and realized that here in the US, especially around places like Chicago, catering costs for sweets can get incredibly pricey. I've been asking around quite a bit, trying to figure out if it's better to buy by the pound or by the individual piece. If you go by weight, you usually get about 25 to 30 pieces per pound depending on the size, but when they sell them individually, they range from $1.20 to $0.57. Given how things are looking right now, I think I'm going to stick to buying by the pound; I'm planning on getting about 60 trays with 20 pieces each, which brings us to a whopping 1,200 pieces just for the venue itself. On top of that, I still need enough for the celebration at home for my husband and me, and potentially—though I'm not really a huge fan of this idea—enough to serve guests at our house. At the end of the day, a pound of these treats is going to run me about $15, and that actually includes the plastic containers they come pre-packaged in for delivery to the hall. By the way, the owner of the venue actually makes them herself, though she works the night shift over at the local bakery...
How many different varieties do people usually go for? What kind of assortments are you all familiar with? I feel like I recognize every single one once I start eating 😍, but I'm honestly terrible at remembering their actual names...

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?i...7ca0rp9jw0.jpg
http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sdsdsdns4.jpg

This is how I want our cake stand to look—one of those two styles... with four tiers...
The thing is, I really wanted a chocolate cake. But after scrolling through this entire thread (62 pages of posts, 🙄), I realized that fondant is actually dyeable, so I decided to go with fondant instead...
I was thinking about doing an ombre effect where each tier gets progressively darker from top to bottom, just to give it that chocolate look even though it isn't actually chocolate😬

Like, maybe the top part could be this color
http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?i...cake14lst1.jpg
(It’ll be a Baileys flavored cake inside)
And then it just keeps getting darker as you go down...

But then it hit me: most of you picked colors that match your wedding party (which makes sense), but my colors are burgundy, red, and white. Now I'm stuck on how to make the cake work with everything else... I'm not a huge fan of those plain white cakes with red accents. I thought about starting with white on the top tier and fading into red as it goes down, but honestly, I'm not feeling that either👎
Because I really just want it to look like chocolate... God, I'm being so high-maintenance...

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to pull this off? Or am I just going to end up with a cake that clashes with the rest of the wedding?

I’m still scratching my head over the math for enough cake for 80 guests, plus whatever I’ll be handing out at the wedding reception and giving to the neighbors the next day.

Chloe Hayes51 said:I’m still scratching my head over the math for enough cake for 80 guests, plus whatever I’ll be handing out at the wedding reception and giving to the neighbors the next day.

Marina, from what I've gathered, if you want to give guests or neighbors little boxes of treats, you probably need at least a few ounces per person.
Honestly, I'm still scratching my head over how much dessert we actually need per guest just for the wedding reception itself. 😕

darkhound25 said:Marina, from what I've gathered, if you want to give guests or neighbors little boxes of treats, you probably need at least a few ounces per person.
Honestly, I'm still scratching my head over how much dessert we actually need per guest just for the wedding reception itself. 😕

The manager at our venue told us that for a guest list of 200, we should plan on roughly 75 to 85 pounds of dessert.